The birth control poll

A new statewide poll from the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund shows Texans believe that access to family planning and birth control is important and should not be limited by a woman’s income level, employer or medical provider. Voters support government taking action to ensure that Texas women can make their own decisions about family planning, including providing state funding for family planning and birth control programs in the state.

Support for state funding for providing access to family planning services and birth control for low-income women is both broad and deep, crossing political, racial, generational and geographic lines. Moreover, strong support exists for access to birth control among religiously observant Texans, including both Catholics and Protestants, as well as Born-again Christians.

Texans believe that access to family planning and birth control is important and should not be limited by a woman’s income level, employer, or medical provider. Voters support government taking action to ensure that Texas women can make their own decisions about family planning, including providing state funding for family planning and birth control programs in the state.

Support for state funding for providing access to family planning services and birth control for low-income women is both broad and deep, crossing political, racial, generational, and geographic lines. Moreover, strong support exists for access to birth control among religiously observant Texans, including both Catholics and Protestants, as well as Born-again Christians.

Voters support efforts to make birth control more accessible to women, not less. Texans oppose the cuts to funding for family planning made by the state Legislature in 2011 and want to see funding restored. They also oppose allowing employers to deny their employees health care coverage for family planning services and birth control, and want to ensure that state funding for family planning goes to medical providers that offer a full range of family planning services, including birth control.

The results in this report are based on a statewide poll of registered Texas voters, conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and Chesapeake Beach Consulting for the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund. The survey reached a total of 604 registered voters in Texas and was conducted February 6 – 11, 2013. The margin of sampling error for the sample is +/- 3.99 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level.

The poll was conducted jointly by Democrat Anna Greenberg and Republican Bob Carpenter. It has certainly accomplished the goal of getting media attention, as stories on the Chron, DMN, and Statesman websites show. But only the Texas Observer notes the disconnect:

Despite the overwhelming evidence of support for family planning services, some legislators have filed bills that go after contraception. Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R-Bedford), for example, is pushing “Hobby Lobby” legislation, which would give tax breaks to companies, like Hobby Lobby, that face federal fines over their refusal to provide emergency contraception coverage to their employees through insurance.

But, according to [TFN President Kathy] Miller, this study only illustrates that lawmakers have lost sight of what Texans actually want. “Last legislative session, we saw some legislators openly declare war on contraception. Texans clearly want that war to stop,” Miller said.

I’m not surprised by this poll result, and I do hope it gets a lot of attention. But, and I hate to be a wet blanket here, the fact is that many Republican legislators have nothing to fear, or at least they believe they have nothing to fear, from it. Not to put too fine a point on it, but when was the last time someone lost an election in Texas for being wrong on birth control? Far as I can tell, the next time will be the first time. Lord knows, there are plenty of Republicans who’ll be on the ballot in 2014 that should take heed of this, starting with our promiscuously litigious Attorney General/Governor wannabee Greg Abbott, who’s been busy amicus-briefing the federal courts over the Obama administration’s contraception mandate for employers, including Hobby Lobby. But until someone actually does lose an election over this, why should we expect anything or anyone to change? Someone needs to start convincing some of those Republican women to reconsider some of the people they’ve been voting for.